


habit formation

by nightcalling



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bets & Wagers, Family Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:06:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27570496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightcalling/pseuds/nightcalling
Summary: “Why is Nicky naked?” Nile blurts out.Nile learns about a bet that Joe and Nicky have.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova
Comments: 16
Kudos: 279





	habit formation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cunninglinguist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cunninglinguist/gifts).



> I wrote this for Lex, who’s celebrating her birthday this weekend. Happy birthday, Lex! I love you and hope you will accept this tiny offering. <3 I’m not too familiar with the fandom other than having seen the film once, so there may be non-canon-compliant details that snuck into this fic (for one, I kept Booker around because I needed him for maximum shenanigans), but I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I did writing it.

> habit (noun):
> 
>   1. A usual way of behaving; a tendency
>   2. Clothing ( _archaic_ )
> 


The weirdest thing about being a member of an immortal crime-fighting squad is not the immortal part of the job description. Nile has long gotten over that, after being shot in the head or impaled on a sword or thrown off of a conveniently placed cliff more times than she can count while hunting down bad guys.

At first, she had kept up with every death like clockwork, but after making it past one-hundred (she had stepped on a mine, she’s still embarrassed to admit), she had decided: fuck it. It wasn’t worth the effort to remember it all. It’s not as though her memory capacity had suddenly expanded indefinitely in addition to the never dying thing, so she’s got to preserve every neuron she has.

The original habit itself had arisen from her days as a marine, back when she’d scratched lines in her notepad as a poor attempt to keep some semblance of human-enforced time in her pocket. Every new pencil mark meant one day closer to shipping home. Now that she’s no longer part of that life, it didn’t make sense to tally up a body count. Besides, jury’s still out as to whether she’s even technically human (“What is to be human if not to live life to the fullest?” Nicky had asked her once when she’d posed the question out loud, but that didn’t help one bit), so any attempt to quantify time would probably end up backfiring against her, anyway.

So, no. The weirdest thing about her new life isn’t never dying. She knows what it feels like to die, and to face the fear of it potentially being the last time. She’s not an expert compared to the rest of the group, but she has more experience in this field than the average person.

The weirdest thing goes something like this: She travels to Brazil with her new friends for a week-long getaway (very rare!). She gets overly excited on the plane and blacks out the moment her body hits her cushiony bed at the safe house. She wakes up at six AM sharp (some habits still die hard), no longer exhausted, and at the top of her game. Being in such a good mood, she waltzes to the kitchen island to put on coffee and, finding nothing in the fridge aside from moldy bread and milk, decides to be a team player. She goes to the market that’s just down the street, picking up fresh fruit and yogurt and eggs and a carton of milk, already looking forward to surprising everyone with breakfast.

And then she walks in the kitchen just in time to see Nicky’s bare ass sticking out from behind the open fridge door.

Nile almost drops the milk, but she doesn’t. Her motor reflexes are simply that excellent. Her mouth, unfortunately, still needs some training in that department.

“What the fuck?” she says.

Nicky closes the fridge door. For some reason, he’s only naked from the bottom-half down. She had expected him to—well, she hadn’t known what to expect. But if Nicky was in the mood to, er, show off his assets, wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to not wear anything at all?

“Hello? Earth to Nile?”

Nile snaps out of her reverie. “Sorry. What?”

“I was just telling you good morning,” Nicky says with an amused smile.

Nile realizes belatedly that she somehow knew it was Nicky even without having seen his face. Granted, she _had_ accidentally walked in on him and Joe during one of their frantic and very graphic make-out sessions a few weeks back, but she had thought she’d closed the door in time to avoid seeing anything that would feed her, ah, imagination.

Clearly, she was wrong. The problem with having such fast reflexes is that, apparently, her brain had stamped the shape of Nicky’s ass into her memory with permanent ink. Again, it’s a nice-looking ass, it really is, but this is not the sort of view she’d pictured when she’d daydreamed about this vacation.

“Morning,” she remembers to reply. “You, uh, looking for?” She holds up the bag of groceries in one hand, the carton of milk in the other.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Nicky says, floating over to grab both items from her. “I’ll take care of things here. You go and relax.”

Normally, Nile is a firm believer in the “you start something, you finish it up” mentality. She had planned out a whole menu in her mind with the ingredients in the bag, but she deposits everything into Nicky’s arms and side-steps like a crab until she reaches one of the island chairs.

She sits down and pours herself a cup of coffee, black. Typically, she’d toss in a single sugar cube and maybe dribble in some cream, but right now, she needs the bitter taste of the beans to keep her engine going. She’s running through different ways to phrase the question she wants to ask when Andy—fully dressed, FYI—walks in.

“Morning,” Nile greets, perking up. This is good. Maybe Andy will say something so she won’t have to.

Andy shoots her a nod in acknowledgment, then begins filling up a glass at the sink next to Nicky.

“No egg for me,” she tells him.

“I remember.”

“And don’t go breaking all the pots and pans again when you and Joe do your…” Andy shakes the glass at him. “I want to see everything in one piece when I walk in here tomorrow morning.”

Nicky mock-salutes in the middle of digging out the carton of eggs from the grocery bag. “Whatever you say, boss.”

“Good.” After downing the water in one go, Andy leaves without another word.

Confused, Nile sags her shoulders. What was Andy talking about? Is this a normal thing? Does Nicky just… prefer the birthday suit sometimes? It’s not as though she minds. Again, it _is_ a very nice-looking ass. Also, if she’s going to be living with the same group of people forever, there are bound to be interesting personal quirks that everyone’s entitled to.

Nicky is humming a foreign tune as he cracks four eggs into a skillet. Nile picks up her mug and drinks half of the coffee before refilling it, slightly disappointed that her stool isn’t tall enough for her to see below Nicky’s hips.

Booker—also fully dressed—is the next to walk in. Before he can do anything else, Nile sneakily grabs his arm and pulls him into the adjacent hallway, positioning them out of Nicky’s sight.

Booker’s previously sleep-addled eyes go alert. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“Shh!” Nile stage-whispers. “I mean, no. I mean, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“It’s, uh.” She tries not to fixate on Nicky’s ass with the corner of her eye. “It’s not that hot, is it?”

Booker looks her up and down. “Seeing as you haven’t traded in your t-shirt and leggings in for a bikini yet, then no, I wouldn’t say so.”

Nile is so unprepared for Booker’s reply that her immediate response is, “I don’t own a bikini.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Did you want a recommendation for a place to get one? I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn this, but people don’t often come to me for fashion advice.”

“No, that’s not—”

“It’s alright, I understand. Nobody else appreciates the importance of simplicity and durability these days,” Booker says, looking extremely serious. “If you’re wanting something eye-catching, I’d suggest asking Joe. He keeps a little pocketbook with all sorts of business cards, I’m sure he can…”

Nile’s head begins to spin as Booker continues to rant. He’s launched into an anecdote about a disastrous shopping trip, something about finding Joe and Nicky fucking in one of the changing rooms of the swimwear department in a store.

This conversation is getting wildly off-topic. She has to get Booker back on track somehow. Tactfully, and as tastefully as she can.

“Why is Nicky naked?” Nile blurts out.

Booker pauses in the middle of his complaints. “Is he?”

Nile turns Booker around, letting him get a good look at Nicky’s very shapely legs before spinning him back to face her.

“Huh. Is it that time already?” Booker peers up at the ceiling as if he’s expecting an answer to materialize amidst the chipped paint.

“Time for what?” Nile asks, continuing to stare at him.

Booker looks back down. “It’s Joe’s birthday.”

“Oh. But why…?”

“They do this every year.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“It’s a thing. Two hundred and...” Booker counts on his fingers. “... ten-ish years running? I’m surprised it hasn’t gone on for longer, if you ask me.”

“Okay,” Nile repeats, even though she doesn’t really get it. She squints. “So, what, Nicky strips naked and lets Joe ogle him for the entire day? As a present?”

Booker scoffs. “As it always is with those two, it’s more complicated than that.”

“I get twenty-three hours to disrobe my beloved,” Joe announces, appearing next to Booker and making Nile jump. They may be on vacation but stealth is apparently a 24/7 necessity. “What’s complicated about that?”

“That’s a very simplified explanation,” Booker says. He waves his watch wrist in Joe’s face. “And it’s almost eight, so you have fifteen hours left.”

“I only have his shirt, undergarment, and watch left to go,” Joe says, putting up a finger in the air for every item he lists. “I, on the other hand, am not missing anything—”

“Yet,” Booker interjects.

“—so I’m not worried.”

Nile stares at Joe’s shit-eating grin, then at Booker’s exasperated expression. “You’re serious. You guys are serious.”

“Of course I’m serious. A lot’s at stake here.” Joe winks at Nile and turns his attention to the kitchen. “Isn’t that right, my love, my light?”

“Your button-up is soon going to be a thing of the past, so I wouldn’t get too cocky,” Nicky warns ominously. He raps Joe’s wrist with a spatula when Joe tries to steal something from the skillet. “Food’s not ready yet. Please wait like a civilized person.”

“How can I behave when you’re out here looking like this, with this,” Joe hovers an open palm over Nicky’s ass, “staring me in the face?”

“You don’t have to look,” Nicky says mildly.

“But it’s there, so I’m looking. Besides…” Joe drops his hand and intrudes Nicky’s space from behind, inhaling deeply. “That ass is going to be mine tonight, so I’m only getting a preview of my prize.”

“Careful.” Nicky flips the bacon. “Touching means an automatic forfeit.”

“That might not be so bad, letting you have your wicked way with me for an hour, but…” Joe eyes Nicky up and down, gaze razor-sharp, so dark and lethal that it could slice flesh. “I’ve got plans for you.”

“Is this supposed to turn me on? I’m not impressed.” Nicky slides the eggs and bacon onto a plate and pushes it into Joe’s hands. “Set the table.”

Nile, face heated and palms sweaty, whispers to Booker, “Do they know that we’re still here?”

“Of course they do,” says Booker, already sounding drained and tired despite having the rest of the day waiting for him, “they just don’t care.”

Needless to say, Nile experiences the most sexually-charged breakfast she’s ever had that morning. If it’s not Joe blowing kisses in Nicky’s direction, it’s Nicky pretending not to be aroused one second and then directing sultry glares at him the next. But that’s the problem with not wearing any underwear, right? Other people notice what’s really happening _down there_ in the private bits, ‘people’ in this case being Nile, who gets to sit to Nicky’s left at the table.

That might be why it isn’t until one egg, two pieces of bacon, and three small helpings of yogurt later that she realizes that Joe has lost a belt and Nicky has gained one.

“How?” she asks, perplexed, as she dumps her dirty dishes in the sink.

“Ah, his fingers were always more nimble than mine,” Joe says approvingly. “My love, you put your hand on my hip and I didn’t even notice? And in front of _Nile_? You rascal.”

“It’s all in the touch. Apply too much pressure and you alert the enemy to your presence.” Nicky slings the belt around his neck. “And stop making everything sound so sordid. If you waste too much time keeping up theatrics, you’ll lose.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Joe says gleefully. “I’m still two articles of clothing ahead.”

Nicky looks Joe up and down, giving away no hints as to his thoughts, then turns to Nile. “He won’t be ahead for long.”

Sure enough, when noon strikes, Nile walks into the garden to get some fresh air, and is rewarded with the sight of Joe in significantly less clothing. He’s one button-up and one pair of jeans down, leaving him stripped to his briefs and tank top in front of the mango tree.

“Should you be out here?” Nile asks, peering nervously at the roofs surrounding them.

“They’re welcome,” Joe says, waving her off. He picks another mango off the tree, adding it to his growing collection in his arms. “Want one?”

“Sure.” Nile accepts a medium-ish-sized mango from his pile. “So, uh. How’s the… thing going?”

“Thing?”

“The… The bet?”

Was it a bet? All of a sudden, she’s not so certain, but Joe had mentioned high stakes and Nicky had mentioned rules of forfeit, so what else would it be?

Joe laughs. “It’s been a while since either of us have used that word to describe it.”

“Then.” Nile pauses. “Is it not a bet?”

“Oh, it most definitely is. First person to render the other person nude before eleven PM without making skin contact gets to make him do whatever he wants until midnight.”

Nile gulps. So that’s what Joe had meant when he’d referred to Nicky’s ass as…

“It wasn’t always so… sordid, as Nicky likes to put it,” Joe continues to reminisce. “It began as regular poker, you know, back when the game was created in the 1800s. It was new, it was exciting, we wanted to try it out. A friendly game, sometimes in the dead of night because neither of us wanted to sleep yet, just for the fun of it. And then money was added to the pool, so it became competitive. That got boring, so we began bartering our clothes until it evolved into strip poker. That was a mistake because, well, let’s just say that the first time we did it, our landlord was not happy about the noise complaints he was receiving.”

“But that didn’t stop you,” Nile guesses.

“No.” Joe bites into a mango, chewing slowly before swallowing. “Funny how our traditions change with the times, isn’t it?”

A tradition? Is that how Joe sees his birthday?

“Oh, I guess I forgot,” Nile says. “Happy birthday.”

Joe smiles, face soft with affection as he slings an arm around Nile’s shoulders. “Thanks, lil sis.”

After the sun sets, Nile exits the bathroom and makes a beeline towards the balcony, hoping to sneak in some of the myriad of colors in the sky before they disappear into darkness. She stops short when she sees two figures leaning against the railing, their backs facing her.

“Four hours left,” Nicky says, his tank top billowing in the summer breeze. “Give it up, mi amore.”

“Not a chance, hayati,” Joe says, twirling a finger in the hem of his briefs. “We’ve each got one left.”

“I can tear those off you in a heartbeat.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“I could do it right now if I wanted.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

Nicky scooches his arm until he’s nearly elbow-against-elbow with Joe. “It was a nice day today, wasn’t it?”

Joe shifts his leg, almost touching Nicky’s foot with his own. “It was a very nice day indeed.”

“It’s going to become even better,” Nicky promises, mischief evident in his voice, “especially after I decimate you tonight.”

“Oh, Nicolo,” Joe replies, affection equally strong in his voice, “I don’t doubt it.”

Nile turns around and returns to her room.

The next morning after breakfast, Nile sits down on one end of the couch with her third cup of coffee in tow, sipping absentmindedly as she stares at Joe and Nicky who are practically smushed together on the tiny armchair across the living room. They’re also both fully decent, which is kind of jarring, all things considered.

As Booker walks by, she shakes off that thought and whispers to him, “What happens when it’s Nicky’s birthday?”

“Good question, lil sis,” Joe says, grinning wickedly, and how in God’s name is his hearing so good? “You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?”

Nicky slaps Joe gently on the forearm. “Don’t threaten her.”

“I wasn’t threatening her, hayati,” Joe says, mocking hurt.

“It sounded like a threat.” Nicky sighs and knocks aside Joe’s hand, which had been snaking up his torso. “I’m sorry about him, Nile. You’d think that he’d behave after last night, but alas, this one is always getting into mischief.”

“L—Last night?” Nile squeaks. Knowing these two, what happened had to have been something incredibly salacious, but she would’ve heard if they were—if they were—right? Had they gone somewhere else to… celebrate? Maybe they’d managed to keep quiet for the sake of the team? Unlikely. Perhaps they had a soundproofing device installed? Or—Christ, did they stay on that balcony all night? Were they _outside_? “What happened last—”

“Trust me,” Booker interrupts, “you don’t want to know.”

Joe shakes his head and lets out a disappointed _tsk_. “Let her make that decision herself, you boring old geezer. This is why we don’t invite you anymore.”

“How terrible,” Booker drones.

“Invite?” Nile echoes, feeling dizzy. They—They don’t mean—

“And who’re you calling old, old man?” Booker demands.

“Children, behave,” Nicky scolds. He rolls his eyes and stands up when Booker stalks over to them, opting to sit down next to Nile on the couch instead. As Joe and Booker continue to bicker, Nicky throws an apologetic glance at her. “Ignore them. I’m afraid this happens every year.”

“Like your thing with Joe,” Nile points out.

“Mmm.” Nicky rests his head on the back of the couch. “Just so.”

“Who won?”

“Who do you think?”

Nile looks at Nicky, at Joe, then back at Nicky. _Elbow against elbow, foot against foot._

“A tie?” she guesses.

“What makes you say that?”

“A feeling.”

“It’s a good one. Yusuf gets more and more creative every year. Yesterday, he tried disarming me of my watch with a sniper rifle.” Nicky’s eyes twinkle with a playful glint, as though he’s allowing Nile in on an inside joke. “Still, you are correct. It’s rare for the result to be anything other than a stalemate these days. I suppose it’s because we’re both so stubborn.”

Nile laughs. What would Joe say if he heard him say that?

Nicky’s grin melts into a softer smile, painting his expression almost rueful. “But even so, I look forward to being caught off guard. I know it’s the same for Yusuf as well.”

While Nile is deciding what to say to that, Nicky adds, “You’re wondering why we continue to do it if the result is always the same.”

Nile thinks of the tally marks, the body count, the time-keeping—then considers the newfound urgency of those tasks if they were done not for herself, but for a partner. Maybe this bet, this _tradition_ , is Joe and Nicky’s way of keeping each other on track. Every birthday celebrated means having survived another year together, and having the next birthday to look forward to.

“Old habits die hard?” she says.

“Succinctly put.” Nicky taps a finger against the couch cushion, then pokes her thigh. “It might be too late to say so at this point, but we’re sorry if we’re too… ah, too much for you.”

“I don’t mind,” Nile says. Her memory swirls with hot days in the desert, the sweat of her uniform, the laughter shared around pitched tents and smoky campfires. _It reminds me of my unit_ , she’s about to say, when the laughter morphs into her father’s husky bellow, her mother’s light giggle, her brother’s good-natured teasing.

She smiles. “It reminds me of my family.”

“Do you miss it?” Nicky says gently. “Your old life?”

“Sometimes.” It’d be a lie if she said otherwise.

A crestfallen glimmer dampens Nicky’s eyes and lingers, staying in the blue of his irises. His gaze causes Nile to freeze, but as Nicky continues looking at her openly, attentively, she feels a warmth spreading through her veins, defrosting her in a way that neither the coffee nor the Brazillian heat has been able to do for her.

Nicky has experienced centuries upon centuries of human emotions, more than enough to make anyone go crazy, and yet here he is, still having enough compassion to afford sadness for her. Maybe that’s what Nicky had meant when he’d told her that to live is to be human. Feeling emotions freely and sharing them with people you love: it becomes even more important when you bear the heavy burden of an eternity.

“I do miss it sometimes.” Nile leans against Nicky’s shoulder. “But not today.”

Nicky lets out a small laugh, his voice echoing deeply in Nile’s ear. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Nile kicks out her feet on the coffee table, content to sit the morning away with Nicky by her side, Joe and Booker’s voices filling up the room.

At one point, Andy returns from her morning jog, towel draped across her shoulders. She takes one look at the four of them and flings the towel in Joe and Booker’s direction.

“Are you two gonna argue all day or will you be useful for once and go get us something to eat?” Andy says. She’s posing it as a question, but it’s not really a question, which is probably why Booker immediately gets up without a rebuttal.

“Aw, boss, come on!” Joe complains, even though he’s already halfway off the armchair himself. “It’s my birthday!”

“Not anymore.” Andy jerks a thumb in the direction of the door. “Shoo.”

“Mi amore,” Nicky says, waving at Joe as he passes by, “be a dear and bring back some of those pastels I like from that bakery, won’t you?”

Joe stoops down to press a kiss to the side of Nicky’s head. “Only because you asked so nicely.” He winks at Nile. “What about you? Any requests?”

“Uh,” Nile says, blushing from having been caught staring at the two of them. “What do they have?”

“You like cakes, don’t you?” Nicky recalls. “That one time, in Paris, you were staring at every cake shop we passed by.”

“Yeah, but, uh,” Nile says, blushing harder. Had she been that obvious?

“The roll cakes,” Nicky says to Joe, tracing a snail shell pattern in the air. “With the swirls.”

Joe’s eyes light up with recognition. “Ah, the bolo de rolo. I’ll get three.”

Before Nile can get out another word, Joe kisses Nicky once more and follows Booker out the door.

Nile blinks, clearing away their afterimages. “But we already had breakfast?” she says to no one in particular.

Nicky hums. “Yes, but it’s much quieter now. Wouldn’t you agree, boss?”

Andy pours herself a glass of bourbon with one hand, waves the other hand at them vaguely, and exits.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for sticking around ‘til the end! I have no clue how you’d take off someone’s clothes without them noticing, but I’m sure if anybody could do it, it’d be Joe and Nicky.
> 
> The definitions of “habit” provided at the beginning of the fic were adapted from the word’s entry in [Merriam-Webster.](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/habit)


End file.
